The Digital Dad

Digsby, the instant messenging client I’ve been using in private beta for a month or so went into public beta today. It’s similar to Trillian and Pidgin in that it supports all of the major IM protocols, MSN, AOL, Yahoo, etc. But it also connects to Facebook, MySpace, GMail and many other services to give you status updates and message notifications. I started using it because its GMail notifier works with Google Apps for your Domain, which the Official GMail notifier doesn’t. (Weird.) They just added video chatting, twitter, and support for full-screen apps, so your IMs don’t crash your game. (Which sucks, trust me.) They’ve got some great skins for message windows and the popups look really cool. I know many folks have been turned off by some of the earlier bugs (If you can call not sending messages with no error notification a bug. I call it “not working.”), but they’ve sorted out most of the issues and continue to update and grow the feature set. Plus, it automatically updates each time you start the app, ensuring your client is always up-to-date. I definitely recommend it. Check it out.

[link]

Now this is awesome. Eye-Fi. It’s a 2GB SD card for your digital camera with built-in 802.11g wi-fi. It will automatically upload your pics to any one of dozens of supported services. Flickr, Smugmug, Wal-Mart. You name it, this things supports it. Best part is, it’s all automatic. You never have to take the card out of the camera. Zip. Zoom. Gone. Plus, it even works in a CF adapter for those of us whose DSLR’s are livin’ in the stone age. At $100, you just can’t beat it. I mean, I’ve still got Christmas pics on our 1GB CF. With the Eye-Fi, they’d be online AS I WAS SHOOTING THEM! Definitely going on my want list.

Ooh, I just thought of another great use. Family members who just can’t get the hang of online photo galleries. Shooting, copying, resizing, uploading. With the Eye-Fi, you could preconfig it for their home wi-fi network, pop it in their point-and-shoot and Boom! Internet magic. Wicked! You know, my father-in-law’s birthday is coming up.

[link]

I’ve been working on an iPhone- & iPod Touch-compatible version of the MSU Wi-Fi Locations map. It’s still a work in progress, but you can CLICK HERE to view the list on your iPhone.

Click on over to the MSU Wi-Fi Locations page and check out the Google Map I’m putting together to list all of the buildings on campus with wireless internet coverage. It’s part of a larger overall project involving Wi-Fi locationing similar to GPS, but for now it will help new students and guests find places with Wi-Fi access on MSU’s campus. From there you can link to the full version on Google Maps. Take a peek, let me know what you think.

Liam and I had some fun playing in the snow today. He sure loved having Daddy pull him around the neighborhood yards all afternoon. And he got to make his first ever snowman, albeit a teency weency one. The pics are on the photo site. And I finally got around to uploading last Christmas and his birthday. Enjoy.